The Death of Lieutenant Taz
by nevthebunny
Summary: Three people died that day, even though two of them were technically still breathing. A series of three oneshots. TUp.
1. Just Him

**A/N This is going to be a series of oneshots from the same storyline. Please read and review :)**

Just Him

"Who is it?" she demands, shaking the new recruit roughly. "Who didn't come back? I asked you a question!"

"It… it was Commander Up," the recruit stutters. "He told us to leave."

Of course, of course he would, that _idiota._ There's a part of Taz that hates him at that moment but most of her being is concentrated on not letting those damn rangers know she's coming to pieces. She will _not_ cry in front of them, even if she has to stun them all.

"I want to hear exactly what happened now!"

When the recruit starts to speak she barks at her.

"No! Not you, you little worm! Someone I trust. Oi! Krayonder, you candy ass!"

Krayonder steps forward tentatively.

"Lieutenant Commander…" he says sadly. "It just sort of happened. We were outnumbered so he gave the order to retreat…"

"So you obeyed him? _Estupido!_ This is all your fault! The Commander would never leave a man behind, even a candy-ass like you, Krayonder. Never!"

And no one knows how to react as Lieutenant Commander Taz, the toughest starship ranger to ever live, starts to sob into Krayonder's shoulder.

"Erm… Lieutenant Commander… he said I should tell you something…" Krayonder tells her cautiously.

"Yes?" she snaps. "Out with it."

"Erm… he said not to send out a rescue mission because it was just him; it isn't important enough and um… remember the Bug World saying about the needs of the many or something like that…"

"The needs of the many bugs outweigh the few," Bug adds helpfully but Taz is no longer listening.

Commander Up has never been just anything, not to her. He could have been just some soldier who rescued her from the robots, like the rest of his starship, but he was the one who set her on her feet; he was the first person to ask if she was okay, never mind the killer robots he was in the middle of fighting. She respects him for that.

He wasn't just the guy who inspired her to become a ranger, either. He was her mentor who chased the bullies away, tutored her in calculus and introduced her to the Karate Kid. He hadn't been in any way obliged to and she likes him for doing that.

And he isn't just her commander; he is her best friend so she'll be damned if she's leaving any planet on his starship without him. He's the only person who's always cared for her and she loves him for that.

"Well what are you all standing around like gulping fish for?" she yells. "Go! Get a pod ready! Dropdown for rescue mission in five minutes! Go!"

"But, Lieutenant Commander…" Specs dares to interrupt. "Commander Up said…"

"I heard what he said! But he is not in charge anymore, I am. We are going to rescue that _idiota_ even if all of you have to die, you hear me? He is more important than all of you put together! Now run, runts!"

Lieutenant Commander Taz has never been one to sit down and take orders, except from him. Yet this is one order she is not going to take. She can accept the order to leave him behind but she will never, ever, see Commander Up as 'just' anything. He is everything. He couldn't see his own worth. He can't see that she doesn't give a rat's ass about the needs of the many and she hates him a little for that.


	2. Tough

**A/N Wow you guys. This fic got more incredible feedback in 24 hours than my other four put together. I'm totally overwhelmed. I love all of you who reviewed. You really made my day after a tiring day on work experience. I feel really bad that this is only a threeshot now… but anyway the last chapter is also finished and I will post it super-soon. All my spanish comes from fanfic reading, hence it is terrible. Thanks for reading (and reviewing) **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to the supermegafoxyawesomehotness that is Team Starkid.**

Tough

To Commander Up she had always been tough. As the youngest ever starship ranger and one of the few females she had to be. But there were times when Taz couldn't be tough. At those times she made damn sure he never saw. Now she was sure she had succeeded. Commander Up would never see her break down so really, what the hell did it matter anymore?

"Go! Everyone move! Those damn aliens are not here no more! Split up! Find the Commander!"

The rangers ran for their lives, more afraid of their acting Commander than the hostile alien forces that had mown down so many of their number just hours before. Then a shout came. They had found him.

* * *

><p><em>"As far as I can tell, Commander, no human life <em>_remains. We were too late," Lieutenant Up reported. _

_The Commander sighed through the communications piece. "Very well, Lieutenant. Good work. Bring the boys back up."_

_Suddenly Up heard screams, human screams, and ran closer to the source of the noise. Hearing it properly he realised they were not screams but a torrent of abusive words in Spanish. _

_"You let me down right now!"_

_It was a girl, no more than fifteen, but she wasn't scared. In fact she was hurling abuse at every robot she could see, despite being entirely at their mercy. _

_Twenty minutes later and she was following him back to his starship, hair pulled roughly back and gripping a kitchen knife like it was her lifeline. _

_"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said gruffly as he left her at the door of her temporary quarters. _

_"You're sure you're okay?" he asked. "You don't need anything?" _

_"No. I am fine. I just need to find those…"_

_Lieutenant Up became profoundly glad he didn't speak a word of Spanish at that point from the obscenities he was sure were coming from the girl's mouth. _

_"Okay. Well, goodnight…" _

_"Taz," she told him shortly. "Just Taz."_

_"Goodnight, Taz."_

_As soon as she shut the door on him the memories of the day flooded into her mind. She slid to the floor and sobbed. "Mama, Papa…"_

_The Lieutenant merely walked away, hearing nothing of the cries and marvelling at the toughest girl he had ever met. _

* * *

><p>Taz had never run faster in her life. "Get him medical attention, now!" she yelled.<p>

However, she knew something was wrong as soon as she reached Specs, Krayonder and the lifeless form of her Commander, her best friend, her love.

"I'm very sorry, Commander, but…"

"It's _Lieutenant_ Commander," she snapped. "He is the Commander."

Specs shook her head. "He's gone, ma'am."

"NO! No! He's been through much worse! Fix him! Fix him, dead goddammit!" These screams weren't the screams of a superior officer; they were the desperate cries of a woman in love.

* * *

><p><em>Lieutenant Commander Up, who had been promoted, had to force himself to stay away from 'Just Taz'. She was just one of the stupid good-for-nothings he was training, nothing special. <em>

_"So, runts, which one of you has the balls to go first?" he yelled, after putting them through a series of extremely tough exercises. _

_Most of the trainees were sprawled out all over the floor but Cadet Taz stood up, barely having broken a sweat, and glared him down. She wasn't used to seeing this new side of him._

_"I will," she volunteered. _

_The room went silent. Suddenly several of the trainees burst out laughing._

_"Taz?" one laughed. "You're just a tiny little girl."_

_"What you saying, Lang?" Taz demanded. _

_The young man just kept laughing until she threw herself towards him, bellowing obscenities. _

_As Up pulled them apart forcefully he could feel the full force of her anger redirect itself to him. _

_"Get off me, you… you…"_

_"That is enough, Cadet Taz!" Up exclaimed. "This is your first caution. Get the hell outside and cool off now!"_

_Taz broke free and stormed out, vowing to hate him for all time. _

_It wasn't much later that Lang and his cronies caught up with her. _

_"Hey look, it's Taz, the wildfire," one of them laughed. "And she's reading a book!"_

_"Do you want to go home to mummy now, Tazzy? " Lang laughed. All traces of laughter faded from his face as Up appeared and swung Taz onto his back. _

_"Permission to chase him, Cadet," Up grinned. _

_Later, when they had chased the bullies far away, Taz jumped off of Up's back and stalked away. _

_"Taz?" he called after her._

_"I am not speaking to you. You humiliated me," Taz said angrily._

_Up caught up with her._

_"Hey, Taz, is this because I've been ignoring you? I can't show preferential treatment, even if you are the best goddamn ranger trainee I've ever met."_

_"I know that," she sulked. "But you don't have to be such an ass."_

_"I do. I have to be a damn tough son of a bitch out there; it's the only way to earn their respect. You understand?"_

_After a moment, Taz nodded. "_Si."

_"I have something for you but you can't tell a soul I gave it to you. It'll give you more even footing with those hulks next time."_

_He pulled out a battered old knife. _

_"Something I had when I was a Cadet," he told her._

_She took it. "Thank you, Lieutenant Commander," she said stiffly and saluted. She didn't allow herself to smile at the gift until she was safely back in her quarters._

* * *

><p>"Commander… Commander Taz! Goldman's spotted alien activity headed right towards us. We have to go!" Krayonder practically yelled.<p>

"Where is my knife?" Taz asked quietly and dangerously. "Where. Is. My. KNIFE?"

"Ma'am, you can't be seriously thinking of staying and fighting them? The odds of any one of us returning from such a brawl are very low…" Specs attempted to reason with her.

* * *

><p><em>"Well, Ranger, looks like this is it. You go kill it out there, you hear me?" Lieutenant Commander Up said gruffly. Truth be told, he was more nervous than the newly-trained starship ranger stood beside him; he had grown rather fond of her and the thought that he could lose her made him want to go and strangle the nearest ensign. <em>

_"Yes, sir," Taz replied. _

_"Taz, we're not at the Academy any more. It's Up, or, if you really must, Lieutenant Commander Up. Now you make me proud. Good luck, soldier."_

_"_Si._ Those robot _hijos de putas_ won't know what hit them… Up."_

_Overall it could be said that young Taz's first mission was a success. They achieved their objective and only a few men were lost. Yet Taz had never seen such gruesome action before. She was shaken and leant on the wall of the starship breathing deeply._

_The kind lieutenant noticed this and walked over._

_"Are you alright there, ranger?" she asked._

_Taz dissolved. "There was so much blood," she said in shock. "I was right there and Holden was right there and…"_

_"It was your first mission. That's always the worst shock."_

_Taz pulled herself together. It wouldn't do for Up to see her that way. She had to be tough, dead goddammit. _

_Meanwhile, Up waited nervously for her starship to dock. He wouldn't do this for every mission, he reasoned, but it was her first one and he was in the area. Feeling stupid, he tossed away the rose he had bought in a moment of weakness and stood waiting._

_He didn't know what he was expecting when she walked through the door but it certainly wasn't the same girl he had seen onto the starship. Maybe he thought she'd be shaken or contemplative or _something_. She merely strolled straight out, shoulders firmly held back and chin up high. _

_She saw him and walked in his direction. _

"_How are you, Taz?" he asked politely. _

"_Those _hijos de putas_ didn't know what hit them," she replied simply and he was left baffled in the wake of the strongest woman he had ever seen._

* * *

><p>"Krayonder, you <em>hijo de puta<em>, put me down! I am your superior and I order you!"

Taz was slung over Krayonder's shoulder, beating at his back with everything she had.

"I'm sorry, Commander, but Section 23 Subsection 12 states that if a commanding officer exhibits reckless and irrational behaviour that could potentially cause harm or fatality to any member of the crew, they are permitted to disobey orders and subdue aforementioned commanding officer," Specs recited.

"You don't have to follow me, just let me go back to him!" Taz begged. "Please."

* * *

><p><em>This was the most twisted role reversal Lieutenant Taz had ever heard of. She cried out, "No!" and attacked with renewed vigour. It was no longer a fight to get the job done; her entire being was completely tangled up in it. The damn <em>idiota_ had let his guard down and now it was he who was strung up like a _piñata_._

_"Up! UP!" she yelled but no matter how hard she fought it was too late._

_The way she fought off thirty four powerful robots to get to the sliced remains of her commander would go down in record books but the one thing Taz cared about was finding a way, any way, to save him._

_There was a way, though the cost was terrible. He wasn't Up anymore, try as she might to convince herself he was still in there. She wasn't ashamed to say she spent hours at his bedside, sobbing and trying to reconcile herself with the terrible decision she had made; he was half robot. Half of him was made up of that which destroyed him in the first place. _

_Perhaps it was some kind of warped luck that she wasn't there when he woke up, then; he would have seen the snivelling wreck she had become and then she would be lost as well. As it was she proceeded cautiously into the room._

_"Taz!" he exclaimed, with a voice full of emotion she'd never heard before. Weren't robots meant to be less emotive?_

"_Commander," she said crisply and saluted. _

_That night Taz finally let it all out: shock was let go and sorrow spilt all over her floor. Commander Up was gone, worse than dead, and all she could do was replay the attack in her head and wish he _had _died._

* * *

><p>"Starship 15-A2, this is base, please report. I repeat, come in Commander Up."<p>

"This is Starship 15-A2, Ensign Krayonder."

"Ensign, where are the Commander and Lieutenant Commander of the ship?"

Krayonder looked around worriedly. It was really coming to something when he was the most senior ranger on the ship.

"Commander Up is dead, sir. Acting Commander Taz has confined herself to her quarters. She doesn't move or talk or nothing. What do we do, sir?"

"Bring the ship home, Lieutenant. Bring her home."

"Lieutenant, sir?"

"You are the highest ranking ranger aboard, excluding Taz, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"Consider this a promotion, Krayonder. You are in charge now. Bring her home."

"Yes, sir."

Lieutenant Krayonder turned to Up's… _his_ men (and women). They all looked downcast.

"You heard the man," he barked, with a new confidence. "February, Specs, Bug, to your stations. Tootsie, try to convince the Acting Commander to come out."

Tootsie knocked and entered Taz's room. She sat on the floor, clutching a knife tightly and staring into nothingness.

"Erm, Lieutenant, I mean Commander… you need to come out now."

It seemed he wouldn't get an answer until…

"Why?"

Suddenly Taz was a girl again, strung up like a _piñata _and just waiting for it all to end.

"Well, we need you, ma'am. Just 'cause the Commander's gone doesn't mean the rest of us are."

"I don't care!" she yelled.

Tootsie jumped.

"I don't care no more, you hear me? The Commander, he's gone. There's no point no more."

It wasn't long before everyone realised that Commander Up hadn't been the only one to die that day. The Lieutenant Commander they knew would rather have faced a fleet of robots than sob her heart out into Tootsie Megagirl's shoulder and that was what she did. Lieutenant Commander Taz wasn't tough; at heart she was just a little girl, but his heart was tough. All those years that had been why she could be; she had his heart but now it had stopped beating.

* * *

><p><em>5 months later.<em>

A young woman crossed the street, trying her hardest to go unnoticed as the first people she had seen for miles approached her.

"Excuse me, miss, could you help me here? We're refugees; my sister's injured, please…" a man- no, a boy- begged.

The intimidating short Hispanic glared at him. "Fine," she said, without a hint of emotion.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm Dal, what's your name?"

She hesitated. What was it they called themselves on Farm Planet?

"I'm Survivor Up."

**A/N *ducks projectiles* Please don't hate me **


	3. Rank

**Disclaimer: Still own nothing.**

Rank

The only noise in the room was the continuing scratches of pen on paper as the Captain filled in reports. His intercom buzzed.

"Captain, we have an intruder in sector J-A5."

The Captain sighed angrily. "Why do I need to know, Lieutenant?" he demanded. "Deal with it!"

He went back to his work. Ten minutes later the intercom buzzed again.

"Captain, we have detained the intruder. What should we do with her?"

_Her?_ The Captain had a thought and checked the date on his watch.

"Bring her to me, you candy-ass," he ordered.

It wasn't long before the door burst open and a small Hispanic woman in her mid-forties was marched in.

"I wondered when I'd be seeing you, former Lieutenant Commander," the Captain commented.

Taz looked up in disbelief at the sound of his voice. "You are the big bad Captain now, eh?" she said.

"There's no need to look so surprised, Lieutenant Campbell," the Captain continued silkily, as the young man gaped. "This is the infamous Former Lieutenant Commander Taz. She and I go all the way back to the Starship 15-A2."

"Not Taz," the woman interrupted emphatically. "That _idiota_ is dead. It's Vi now."

"An interesting choice. May I ask why Vi, Taz?"

"Short for survivor," Taz told him shortly. "It's more appropriate."

"I see. Lieutenant Campbell, I can take matters from here."

The door closed and the two old friends were left alone.

"What am I going to do with you, Taz?" the Captain asked dangerously. "Why are you here?"

"You know why, _Captain_," Taz sneered. "I'm sure you are well aware what you keep in Sector J-A5."

"I am aware. You broke into the remains of Starship 15-A2. I have been expecting you for eight years."

"No 'Happy Birthday' then, Captain? The rest of the crew not here to welcome me back?"

"With all due respect, and by that I mean no respect at all, we weren't going to wait around for an arrogant little deserter like yourself to grace us with her presence, _Vi_."

There was something in the Captain's averted eyes that whatever was left of the fearless son of a bitch Taz remembered. It was vulnerability and the man she'd known before he became The Captain, most feared Starship Ranger ever, except maybe his own former Commander, had been drowning in it.

"They all left you, didn't they, _Captain?_ They're scared of you."

"Shut up, man!" he snapped and the steely wall of Captaincy fell away. "You're not interested in the rest of the crew anyway."

Taz merely shrugged.

"In case you care, Lieutenant Megagirl and his wife retired back to Farm Planet. Bug's dead and I have no clue what happened to that idiot February. And as for Specs…"

He'd been a starship ranger for twenty years and a ruthless, feared one for eighteen but never had The Captain been reduced to such sorrow in such a short time.

"You're a candy-ass, Krayonder," Taz said bluntly. "You wanted to be tough but tough is not you. You is an _idiota_ and a damn great one and that, that is why Officer Specs loved you. If I could have just _una dia_ with the Commander… _Una dia!"_

Taz had made her way off the floor and was right in the Captain's face.

"I hated the Commander for going soft, Krayonder, but you were worse. You went mean. You know what today is, _Captain,_ or has your heart completely left you?"

"It's your birthday, Taz."

"_Si. _I am forty-five years old. Eight years older than the Commander will ever be. I met him thirty years ago today, Krayonder."

"And he died eighteen years and a day ago."

"You remember?"

Taz was shocked. She had thought the Captain was too different. She had thought he had lost most of the old Krayonder that she trusted. But he was still in there.

"No man, even an idiot, can forget a day like that," he sighed heavily.

"Three people died that day," Taz told him. "Commander Up, Lieutenant Commander Taz and Ensign Krayonder. We are all that is left."

The two sat in silence before Krayonder abruptly moved to rummage around in his drawers. He handed her an ancient knife.

"I think this is what you came here for," he said.

Taz accepted it. "You kept it? All these years?"

Krayonder nodded.

"But why give it to me? You have to arrest me now, no?"

"An old friend of mine once told me that a good starship ranger never leaves a man behind, particularly one he considers a friend. If you take a left there is a very roomy vent around the first corner. It should be more than adequate."

Taz looked him up and down. "Thank you, Captain. You remind me of an _idiota _I once knew."

She saluted and ran from the room and barely a minute later Lieutenant Campbell rushed in.

"Sir, she's getting away!"

Calmly, the Captain picked up his cold cup of tea and took a sip. "Correct, Lieutenant."

The junior ranger stared. "You didn't just let her go, Captain? Lieutenant Commander Taz is the most wanted bandit in the galaxy."

"I was mistaken, Campbell. That woman was merely an old friend of mine. Her name is Vi."

The Lieutenant was sheepish. "Oh. Sorry, sir."

He made to leave but the Captain stopped him. "If you would be so kind, Lieutenant, could you contact a science officer by the name of Specs. Tell her Krayonder's sorry."

"Who is Krayonder, sir?"

The Captain smiled. "Just an idiot I used to know."

**A/N That was the last chapter. I may possibly do a Krayonder spinoff at some point in the endlessly distant future (i.e. after exams. Meh) Thank you so much for all your reviews!**


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